The schedule here in the monastery seems to be the following:
5:30 Wake up
6:00-6:45 Puja (praying)
7:00 Breakfast (available until 8:00)
8:00-9:30 Self study and free time
9:30-11:00 Classes
11:30 Lunch
12:00-13:30 Self study, cleaning, some free time
13:30-15:30 Classes
15:30-15:45 Afternoon tea
15:45-17:15 Classes
17:30 Dinner
19:30-20:30 Debate practice (Mon-Tue), Tibetan reading (Wed-Thu), praying (Fri)
22:00 Silence
There are differences with the schedule if you are in kindergarten or class 1 but basically the above is followed by everyone. So the youngest ones don't practice debate yet but they learn something else at the same time. This monastery school offers home and education to approx 50 children, mostly coming from remote Himalayan villages. Boys get residence, food, stationary, medicine, pocket money, clothing, expenses to travel home for the holidays and other important needs free of cost. Not all of them will be monks, some will decide to go back to "normal" life.
I teach all together six classes, normally teachers here have 4 h per day but as I'm the only volunteer at the moment, I have more classes. My classes are kindergarten, classes I-IV and VI (no V class this year). Classes VII-VIII can come to talk with me if they want. So far only one boy from class VIII has come to talk with me, other ones just say "hello miss". Either they are not so interested in English or they are just shy :)
This first day was to get to know with each other and play Hangman, boys love it. It was really difficult to figure out what to do with kindergarten class but I then decided to sing with them "Open, shut them" and play along the song. Good choice, they loved it. It will be interesting to teach kindergarten and classes I-III as we definitely have no common language. There is no teaching guide I could follow so I must figure out the content of my classes just by myself. Luckily wifi works so it's easy to find out tips in internet but how then to explain to these boys what I want them to do... But luckily these boys are so nice and also some boys in classes I-III know English better, they can then explain to others. Classes IV and VI are a bit easier because they get pretty well what I try to say. It seems to be the same here as in Finland: boys know grammar and vocabulary pretty well already from class II but speaking English in not the main thing in this schooling system.
My first impression is that boys are really funny and energetic. Especially in the kindergarten class (also a little bit in classes I-II) I had to step in between small "fights" and they loose attention very easily which is very understandable as this is their first year in school and days are long. And when they loose attention, starts kicking, slapping etc. and then few seconds later they are friends again. It's really hard to believe that youngest ones are 7 as they look like 4-5 years old. As mentioned at the beginning most of the boys come from Himalayan villages so they can go home only couple of times per year. This school is their second home and all boys are good friends together, nobody is left out. I noticed that already during my second day, pretty amazing situation compared to Finnish schools. In classes III, IV and VI there are no fights but they really try to cheat on me, about everything and they just say "just kidding, miss" :) And at the beginning of classes other boys want to come to class room even if it's not their class, just for fun of it. "Hello, miss! Can I come in, miss!", then a biiig smile and my class starts to scream "he should not be in this class, miss!!!" This happened like before every class (and still continues).
lauantai 24. maaliskuuta 2018
torstai 22. maaliskuuta 2018
Arriving monastery
Finally something to publish, I have had some technical difficulties and still cannot add any pictures. But some I have already added to Facebook and Instagram, so I think no worries. I have written every day since I arrived but I thought it's better start now with my first day in Manjushri Di-Chen Buddhist Learning Center (MDBLC). I will write later about my first week in Nepal and in Kathmandu.
The road to Pharping was something I've used to in Nepal so far: pumpy, dusty and dangerous. It was only 20 km from Kathmandu but it took almost 1,5 H to get to Pharping. At first bus climbed up veeery slowly almost to the middle of a mountain and then just a bit down which was really nice at least for me. As higher up the road was narrow and close to the edge, so it was terrifying to watch out of the window. The soundtrack in the bus was driver's favourite collection of Indian Bollywood movie music and as loud as you can imagine. But good and very hyppy music, no complaints.
In Pharping me and Green Lion Nepal coordinator had to walk around 1 km to MDBLC from the bus stop and all the time up which was pretty nice with my backbag, in hot weather and my stomach a bit upside down (I blame pizza on Thursday in Thamel). First I was taken to my room (private room this time, only option here), my room is on the top of the class rooms in a separate building. Then my coordinator Bhuchung in MDBLC took us to the administration office to have a cup of tea (here always with milk) with local bread, like Finnish tippaleipä. Bhuchung came to MDBLC in 2001 but he studied in India for 9 years and then came back. He is very calm, nice guy, smiles very easily and I got the feeling that he really thinks what he wants to say.
I had only one class after tea with class IV. Boys in this class are from 11 years up to 18 years, most of them 14-16 years, all together 11 boys. I would say teenagers in some ways but more polite and talkative than Finnish ones :) Today it was all about telling names and ages, I also told something about Finland and promised to show Finland in a map in the next class. Boys' English level was in better than with the beginners so I communicatd with them pretty well: some are better, some not so good. They wanted to know some English sentences and words in Finnish and this created a lot of laugh in the class but their Finnish pronounciation was really good. Almost all the boys love football and they laughed a lot when I couldn't say my favourite football player and I didn't know who is Bale. I had to google him and now I know: he's Gareth Bale.
School etiquette is very polite: when I enter the class room, boys stand up, I'm called miss (all the time, also outside the class room), if someone is late, permission to enter the class room is a must, also when leaving the class room in the middle of the class and boys don't leave the class room until I'm out. Few days later I said to my class VI boys that it's a bit hard to get to used to these very polite manners, they just looked at me like "why" and explained that this is because they respect me as I'm their teacher. What can I say, better just get used to it and be very humble about this respect. Of course during the class "boys were boys" and few times I had to ask them to be a bit more quiet as all were talking at the same time and it was hard to hear questions but I really liked the energy in the class, openness and laugh. It will be interesting to see how these boys will keep up their interest in English conversation for 4 weeks and how I can manage to provide them interesting and nice classes. But I'm at the same time pretty sure we will manage even if there is not much in common with our worlds, it's so easy to get along with these boys.
(And sorry about all the mistakes at the beginning of the text, I cannot get back to that part to correct them :))
The road to Pharping was something I've used to in Nepal so far: pumpy, dusty and dangerous. It was only 20 km from Kathmandu but it took almost 1,5 H to get to Pharping. At first bus climbed up veeery slowly almost to the middle of a mountain and then just a bit down which was really nice at least for me. As higher up the road was narrow and close to the edge, so it was terrifying to watch out of the window. The soundtrack in the bus was driver's favourite collection of Indian Bollywood movie music and as loud as you can imagine. But good and very hyppy music, no complaints.
In Pharping me and Green Lion Nepal coordinator had to walk around 1 km to MDBLC from the bus stop and all the time up which was pretty nice with my backbag, in hot weather and my stomach a bit upside down (I blame pizza on Thursday in Thamel). First I was taken to my room (private room this time, only option here), my room is on the top of the class rooms in a separate building. Then my coordinator Bhuchung in MDBLC took us to the administration office to have a cup of tea (here always with milk) with local bread, like Finnish tippaleipä. Bhuchung came to MDBLC in 2001 but he studied in India for 9 years and then came back. He is very calm, nice guy, smiles very easily and I got the feeling that he really thinks what he wants to say.
I had only one class after tea with class IV. Boys in this class are from 11 years up to 18 years, most of them 14-16 years, all together 11 boys. I would say teenagers in some ways but more polite and talkative than Finnish ones :) Today it was all about telling names and ages, I also told something about Finland and promised to show Finland in a map in the next class. Boys' English level was in better than with the beginners so I communicatd with them pretty well: some are better, some not so good. They wanted to know some English sentences and words in Finnish and this created a lot of laugh in the class but their Finnish pronounciation was really good. Almost all the boys love football and they laughed a lot when I couldn't say my favourite football player and I didn't know who is Bale. I had to google him and now I know: he's Gareth Bale.
School etiquette is very polite: when I enter the class room, boys stand up, I'm called miss (all the time, also outside the class room), if someone is late, permission to enter the class room is a must, also when leaving the class room in the middle of the class and boys don't leave the class room until I'm out. Few days later I said to my class VI boys that it's a bit hard to get to used to these very polite manners, they just looked at me like "why" and explained that this is because they respect me as I'm their teacher. What can I say, better just get used to it and be very humble about this respect. Of course during the class "boys were boys" and few times I had to ask them to be a bit more quiet as all were talking at the same time and it was hard to hear questions but I really liked the energy in the class, openness and laugh. It will be interesting to see how these boys will keep up their interest in English conversation for 4 weeks and how I can manage to provide them interesting and nice classes. But I'm at the same time pretty sure we will manage even if there is not much in common with our worlds, it's so easy to get along with these boys.
(And sorry about all the mistakes at the beginning of the text, I cannot get back to that part to correct them :))
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